Culture.pl’s Monthly Cultural Round-up: September 2026
September is such an exciting month: for students, it marks a new beginning, and everyone else also seems to get a boost after the summer holidays. The weather in Poland is great, nature starts changes subtly as summer slowly gives way to autumn. Poles go mushroom picking and make plum jam, and Polish artists… play new music, design great fashion, and go to Hollywood!
The 69th International Festival of Contemporary Music Warszawska Jesień (Warsaw Autumn) took place September 18-27. This year’s theme, Signs, asked audiences to look to the deeper meaning of this year’s event, inviting them – as director Jerzy Kornowicz phrased it – to 'a collective shift of attention.’ The main program featured over twenty world premieres, including works by Krzysztof Knittel, Mateusz Śmigasiewicz and Wojciech Błażejczyk.
Babies Smell Wonderful to Their Parents, Teenagers Do Not is the title of a medical article written by Polish scientists Agnieszka Sorokowska and Tomasz Frąckowiak from the University of Wrocław, with Ilona Croy and Thomas Hummel, published in the journal Chemosensory Perception. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was awarded the Ig Nobel – a prize dedicated to scientists whose unusual research may make you laugh. The researchers have been studying smell for years and found out that while infant odours are considered very pleasant by their parents (which is one of babies’ Kindchenschema, ‘cute’ features), the way teenagers smell is… well, not as cute.
Through the Wall, a love story directed by Maciej Sobieszczański set in a Stalinist prison, won the Golden Lions at the 51st Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. Other winners include international co-productions – Hot Spot by Agnieszka Smoczyńska (four awards, including the Andrzej Żuławski Golden Claw Award given to films that are courageous and search for a new cinematic language) and Good Boy by Jan Komasa (four awards, including Best Screenplay and Best Actor for Anson Boon). Paweł Pawlikowski won the Best Director Award for Fatherland – which is also going to be the Polish Oscar candidate.
This September was particularly exciting for one of Poland’s biggest film stars, Marcin Dorociński. It started with the premiere of Mayday with Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh. Marcin plays the villain and has been described by critics as ‘impressively scary’. The month ended with one of the year’s most anticipated Polish premieres: The Doll, directed by Maciej Kawalski, with Dorociński as the main protagonist, Stanisław Wokulski. Based on the great 19th-century novel by Bolesław Prus, it was the second doll we’ve seen this month: while the film is a more classic adaptation, you can watch the unorthodox series directed by Paweł Maślona, with Tomasz Schuchardt as Wokulski, on Netflix now. Esquire describes it as ‘breathtaking’.
Magda Butrym, designer to the stars, made her official New York Fashion Week debut presenting her Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Natalia. Inspired by Polish conceptual artist Natalia LL, the collection explores the themes of femininity, desire, and the female gaze, with references to domestic life, including the humble apron and the tradition of Polish crochet art. Demi Moore is already wearing it!
And speaking of Hollywood stars… in September, half of them move to Telluride, Colorado, for what may be the coolest festival there is. Many highly anticipated films premiered there this year, including Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s unhinged Fyodor Dostoyevsky biopic The Idiot(s), starring Johnny Flynn and Aimee Lou Wood as Dostoyevsky’s wife, Anna. From there, it went straight to Canada for the prestigious Toronto Film Festival. The Student Academy Awards were also held at TIFF, and Leon Korzyński’s short Kamathipura Express won the Bronze Award, which makes it eligible for the Live Action Short Film category at the Oscars.
And since we’re talking about Polish directors… Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut took the same route, which obviously isn’t his debut. This film, unlike A Real Pain, is not set in Poland, but it’s coming here soon, as it is set to open the Warsaw Film Festival in October… Which is also going to be a great month! See you then!